Land of Enchantment by Leigh Stein
I discovered Leigh Stein via her Substack, specifically this post, which hit the nail so solidly on the head that I had to see what else she had written. Land of Enchantment is the novel/memoir version of that post, sort of - it's a thoughtful, uncomfortable look at her youthful abusive relationship … [Read more]
A Terrible Intimacy: Interracial Life in the Slaveholding South by Melvin Patrick Ely
When people think of slavery in the American South, they usually imagine vast, intensely segregated plantations. However, usually Black people and their White enslavers lived cheek by jowl, and this terrible intimacy could give rise to many different kinds of tensions, as demonstrated by the six … [Read more]
The Helm of Midnight by Marina J. Lostetter
After the dangerous relic of a serial killer is stolen in a daring heist, Krona and her fellow Regulators must uncover the greater conspiracy at play and recover the mask to keep the murders starting up again from beyond the grave. Not only is this book is an intriguing mix of fantasy, suspense … [Read more]
Burn Book by Kara Swisher
My book club chose Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (2024) by Kara Swisher as our latest book. We'd already read another tech memoir, Careless People, which I enjoyed. I was hoping I would like Burn Book as well. In the end, I didn't love it. Although there were parts that were engaging, I did not have … [Read more]
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
4.5 stars Sir Robert "Robin" Blyth ends up in a civil service position he is vastly unprepared for, as it turns out, he is supposed to be a liaison between the secret magical world and the more mundane regular world. Usually, the post is held by an individual from a magical family just unlucky … [Read more]
The Gale by Mo Yan, Chengliang Zhu and Ying-Hwa Hu
The Gale is a beautiful and sad story. It is also a unique story and the back story is as good, if not better, about how the inspiration came about. There was a lot of love that went into this story and creation of the book. Author Mo Yan, illustrator Chengliang Zhu, translator Ying-Hwa Hu and … [Read more]
